


A Different Kind of Fire

by AnnaOfMirkwood



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Anniversary, Atem (mentioned), Drinking, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, possible puzzle and prideshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 14:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaOfMirkwood/pseuds/AnnaOfMirkwood
Summary: Kaiba and Yugi have a drink together to honor Atem on the first anniversary of his passing. Emotions happen. Kaiba fares as best he can.
Now illustrated!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jackvbriefs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackvbriefs/gifts).



> For the gift exchange! Sorry this took me so long to get out. Exams plus surprise chronic illness flare-ups will do that. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Illustration by www.frigidloki.tumblr.com

On the situation he currently found himself in, Kaiba was sure of three things. First, Yugi did not drink. He never developed a taste for alcohol nor ever had the inclination to do so. Second, he himself did not drink “for fun.” Being able to hold his liquor was one of the many things Gozaburo had taught him. It was nothing more and nothing less than another required aspect of being a successful businessman. Third and finally, despite the two previous statements, both he and Yugi were sitting together with a glass of amber liquid in hand. Yugi wasn’t trying to create a taste for whisky nor was Kaiba hacking out a business deal. No, today of all things was an anniversary. 

“You know,” Yugi had said about half an hour prior, “if he could see us right now… He wouldn’t want us to be so serious.” 

“Would you rather do something different?” Kaiba had asked. He didn’t stop pouring their drinks. 

“No.” Yugi murmured. “It wouldn’t feel right to pretend.”

So they had taken their whisky and sat in the silence of Kaiba’s den. It was by far the “homiest” room of the excessive mansion he lived in. Originally one of several parlors scattered throughout the house, about two years ago Kaiba had refitted it with more comfortable furniture and some modern additions of a TV above the stone fireplace and several top of the line gaming systems. Mokuba enjoyed the room more than he, but even Kaiba had to admit he tended to come there when work drew into the late hours of the night. There was something enveloping, but not oppressing, in the juxtaposition of old and new. 

Perhaps that was why, when Yugi had suggested a drink in Atem’s honor, he’d led Yugi here instead of the main living room, or the dining room, or one of those other parlors that had remained largely untouched. He craved the security. Even the silence felt comfortable. There were many things that could be said, showy speeches on how Atem had affected them both. But they didn’t need to be said. They both already knew. 

Kaiba had finished his first drink and decided on a second when Yugi spoke again. What he heard made him pause mid-pour. 

“Do you ever wish he was here instead of me?” 

Kaiba sat still for a heartbeat then wordlessly continued to pour his drink. Settling back into the sofa, he swirled the liquid around his cup for a moment before glancing over at Yugi. “No.” He answered, quiet but sure. He added, “I have… missed him. At times, so intensely I thought I would go insane.” His lips curled into a smile that felt more like a grimace. “More so than usual, I guess. But no, I have never thought I would exchange you for him.” 

Yugi hummed in response, staring intently as his half-full glass. “I’ve wondered before, what it would be like if he were here instead of me. How he would fare.” 

“You think he’d do better.”

“Well, yes.” Yugi said with a resigned smile. “He always was what I aspired to be: confident, brave, strong. But it’s more than that, Kaiba. If he were here, he’d do what was expected of him. Of me.”

“Be a professional duelist.” Kaiba surmised. “Yes, I suppose he would. That does seem like something he would do. And you think because you want to create games for a living instead of playing them, that that makes you lesser? You do remember that I make games for a living.”

“Oh you know I didn’t mean it like that, you jerk.” Yugi grouched, shoving him in the arm. Then he added, “When you say it like that, it does seem silly. But I just don’t always feel like I’m living up to the legacy he left.”

“So?” Kaiba retorted sourly. He felt tired and slightly irritated. The day had been long, full of odd, foreign emotions that he had kept beneath the surface as well he could. He’d wanted to sit in the cool but secure hold of muteness, but like always Yugi was pulling him into new, uncharted, emotional territory. “I’m not following the path that Gozaburo laid out for me. Does that make me lesser than him?”

“What? I never said that!” Yugi looked distressed. Kaiba felt bad, and then he felt worse because he felt bad. Again, new territory that he had little idea how to navigate. In the past year, he’d somehow been drawn to Yugi more than ever. Atem, who had seemed to be the driving force that always brought them together in the past, was doing even more to their relationship by not being there. And being in Yugi’s company, just Yugi’s company, had begun to change him, perhaps more than Atem had changed him. 

Kaiba took a healthy drink from his cup. He welcomed the way it burned through his mouth and down his throat. “I know,” he said finally, running a hand through his hair. “I know. This is going to be hypocritical for me to say, but trust me. Not doing what’s expected doesn’t make you a failure.” 

Yugi studied him with his large, peculiarly purple eyes. So long had Kaiba himself studied those eyes, stared at them from across an arena, spurred by the fire that burned in them. A fire still sparkled in them now—a different fire from before, but a fire all the same. 

“Thank you,” Yugi said finally. “I really appreciate you reminding me that.”

Shrugging, Kaiba looked away. “Don’t thank me for the truth.”

“If you insist.” Yugi sighed. He lifted his glass up to Kaiba’s. “To Atem, then?”

Nodding, Kaiba clinked their cups together. “To Atem.” He echoed. 

They finished their drinks and set the glasses on the table. Yugi settled into Kaiba’s side, head on his shoulder. His hair tickled Kaiba’s neck as Yugi snaked a slender hand into one of his own. In front of them, the fire under the mantle burned strongly, casting long shadows across the room. 

The fire in Atem’s eyes would always stick with him, so poignant that it seemed to catch in his very soul, chasing him out of himself in a way he both hated and desperately needed. He had run to it as much as from it. But Yugi’s fire burned through him just as strongly. A slow flame that resonated somewhere in his chest, sometimes aching so acutely he thought he must be glowing because such a flame couldn’t possibly be contained behind something so flimsy as human flesh and bone. It burned like a light in the distance on a dark night and he couldn’t help but follow it as if he were a moth. This flame wrapped its tendrils around him, digging warm hooks into his stomach, scorching his lungs with its smoke, burning into the deepest layers of his skin like a branding iron. 

Yes, Kaiba thought as he craned his neck forward to press their lips together, Yugi had a different fire in him, a fire all his own. And Kaiba, as unsentimental as he prided himself on being, couldn’t help but cherish that.


End file.
